


The Correspondence

by codswallop



Series: Correspondences [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Army!John, Epistolary, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-26
Updated: 2011-11-26
Packaged: 2017-10-26 13:44:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/283881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codswallop/pseuds/codswallop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 2005-2008, military doctor John Watson strikes up a long-distance correspondence with that funny bloke whose life he'd once saved in a bar in London. Sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/216994">Fairytale of London</a>, second in a series of three fics.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Correspondence

**Author's Note:**

> Credit for the concept of this AU goes to Montana_Highway - thanks again, if you're still out there and reading!

In the autumn of 2005, Captain John Watson of the RAMC becomes the world's first part-time long-distance consulting detective's assistant on the internet.

It’s only possible because he’s being stationed at the new facilities at Helmand while they get things underway there and work out the bugs. For the first time in years, John not only has regular access to his email but a reason to check it. Sherlock has, for reasons unknown, suddenly taken to telling him long stories about his efforts to get his consulting business off the ground. He’s effusive, expansive, and John quickly gets the sense he doesn’t have a lot of people to talk to about it, or talk to at all. Even on base he can’t get online to check his email every day, but whenever he does he gets a jolt of excitement to find that there’s at least one new message from sholmes@thescienceofdeduction.co.uk, and sometimes four or five.

John responds with honest admiration, with answers to medical questions when he can, with questions of his own about the finer points of some of the cases. He’s always secretly loved murder mysteries.

They don’t discuss their personal lives at all in these emails. Not a word.

 _Why me?_ John asks, late one night in a reckless and unguarded moment.

 _You have an appreciation for unorthodox methods,_ Sherlock responds almost at once, as if he’s thought it over himself and has an answer at the ready. _Using snow as a cooling agent to slow the cardiopulmonary system mid-event? Impressively risky._

 _Combat medicine forces you think on your feet,_ John types back. _It was probably very stupid of me._ He stares at the blinking cursor for a while, decides that he might not be given an in like this again, and adds, _Still using?_

He doesn’t really expect an answer, but he gets one: _Not much. Still gambling?_

John shuts down the window and walks away from the computer, even though he knows that failing to answer the question is an answer of its own. He is, in fact, gambling quite a bit these days--not for seriously high stakes, but enough to cut into his pay. It’s hard to adjust to not being out in the field anymore. He agrees with his CO that he’d needed a break from combat duty, and this is a promotion, really. He should feel honored.

Sherlock doesn’t ask many questions or have much to say about John’s work, and that’s fine. Then there’s the day when he gets online to find a long string of emails with questions about neurotoxins, antivenoms, subcutaneous versus intravenous delivery methods, and he answers the last one with a cursory _not really sure about this one, sorry._ Sherlock is online to receive it and respond instantly, of course; Sherlock is apparently constantly online.

_Come on, this is first-year medical school stuff, John, you can do better than that. I could Google for this._

_Why don’t you, then?_ John answers quickly. He squinches his eyes shut after he’s sent it and rubs his temples.

 _Sorry,_ he types, in his next message. _Bad day. They brought a little girl in, a local, third-degree burns over 65% of her body. I’ve seen worse of course, but not with children._

There’s a response after what seems to John like an uncharacteristically long pause. _That would be difficult, I imagine._

You can’t imagine, John thinks angrily, you spoiled civilian prat, and then he closes his eyes again and breathes for a while before answering. _Yes, it was. Almost hope she doesn’t survive; her parents and brother were killed in the explosion. Anyway. Do you still need an answer about the anti-venom?_

 _No, never mind, it’s merely hypothetical,_ Sherlock replies. _I tend to forget where you are sometimes. I apologise._

When he’s less tired, John reads the email again and decides he’d better save that one for posterity.

*

~ 17 December, 2007 ~

_Hi, Sherlock. Haven’t heard from you in a while. No interesting cases lately?_

_I’ll be back in London later this week, actually. My sister’s getting married. I haven’t met the girl yet, it’s all a bit weird and sudden, but Harry seems really happy when I’ve talked to her recently. And sober, which is unusual, for her. We’ll see how long it lasts._

_(I shouldn’t be such a pessimist. Maybe she’s actually turning her life around this time. Maybe it can just happen like that, maybe all it takes is meeting the right_

John stops, leans back in his chair, and looks at the ceiling for a while. Then, briskly, he shakes his head and deletes the entire last paragraph, finishing off with:

_Anyway, yeah, I’m in town through New Year’s on the off chance you’re around and want to meet up for a drink. Promise not to push you down in the snow this time.  
\--JW_

There’s no reply. Not before he leaves for his plane, and not while he’s in London. He finds excuses to check his email so often that Harry makes comment before he finally gives up and decides he’s been a complete idiot.

*

~ 28 March, 2008 ~

_Sorry for the long silence. Rehab. Fine now. In your opinion, could an average-sized man in fair physical condition spear another man through the chest and pin him to the wall with a single blow from an antique whaling harpoon? It’s for a case.  
\--SH_

_Good lord, I should hope it’s for a case. Wait, what, rehab? Sorry to hear it--what happened?  
\--JW_

_Immaterial. Your opinion on the harpoon?  
\--SH_

_Possibly. How antique? It would have to be extremely sharp. And I don’t consider it immaterial. I’d very much like to know what happened. The wedding was fine and I enjoyed my time in London, by the way, thanks for asking.  
\--JW_

_You’re angry. That’s dull of you. Never mind; I’ll do my own looking into the matter.  
\--SH_

John writes several responses of varying lengths and levels of sarcasm, but manages not to send any of them. He tries to put it out of his head. He has mates on base, plenty of them. He’s well-liked. (Losing at poker makes you well-liked. At least it does when you pay your debts, which he always does.) He hadn’t heard from Sherlock in so long he’d nearly given up on him--so why dwell on the man now?

~ 4 April, 2008 ~

_Fine, you win. No personal stuff, got it. Tell me about the whaling harpoon. What happened?  
\--JW_

_I’m not trying to be secretive, John. It bores me to discuss it, that’s all. Every few years my brother likes to assert his nominal authority over me by having me kidnapped and packing me off to a private rehabilitation clinic in some remote location or other. The surroundings are always stultifying and their methods laughable. It’s occasionally useful for me to get away from London for a few weeks or months, however._

_I managed to obtain a pig carcass to test the harpoon theory and determined that it could be driven entirely through the body and into a wall, but only by a determined murderer with considerable upper body strength. The prime suspect in the case was exonerated._

_Much more interesting than the story of a brilliant idiot with a cocaine habit, no?  
\--SH_

_Mmm...I’d say equally interesting.  
Did you overdose again?  
\--JW_

_Just a bit.  
\--SH_

~ 8 April, 2008 ~

_I just don’tknow wjy you feel like you neeed to fuck yourself up, is the thing. Brain like yours. You’r amazing and it’s sucvh a stupid waste. Whhy???  
\--J_

_Same reason you needed to drink seven shots of...whisky, I’ll assume? before you typed this message. Consciousness hurts, when you know too much.  
\--SH_

~9 April, 2008 ~

_How’s the hangover?  
\--SH_

_Oh god. Shut up. IGNORE THAT LAST EMAIL.  
\--JW_

_What, you don’t think I’m amazing?  
\--SH_

_Well. I do, actually, yes. You know you are.  
Any new cases on the horizon?  
\--JW_

It’s the closest they’ve got to flirting--not very close, but it makes John go a bit tingly, waiting for Sherlock’s next message.

Which is entirely case-related, of course. There’s really no reason to think Sherlock would ever think of him that way, anyway...except that, as a career soldier, John’s had plenty of experience in carrying on long-distance flirtations, and something about this feels similarly charged. Sometimes. Sort of.

*

Sherlock’s emails sometimes refer to “an acquaintance” of his on the police force who allows him access to crime scenes on occasion, an acquaintance who’s upgraded to “colleague” at some point that spring and, once or twice, “friend.” No names, ever, not even any pronouns, just “my friend at the Yard,” and John’s slightly ashamed of how much time he spends trying to puzzle out whether Sherlock means “friend” or “fuck-buddy.”

Not that John should care. He’s got a few of those himself. He’s simply curious, that’s all; for some reason, everything about Sherlock seems to make John more and more curious. It’s as if the longer their correspondence lasts, the less well John seems to know him.

In June, the friend at the yard gets a name: Lestrade. John googles, and gets some newspaper articles referencing a Detective Inspector G. Lestrade. No photos, no first name. Gus? Gertrude?

John finally asks about it one night.

_This friend at the Yard. Are you two...involved? He (she?) seems to come up a lot lately.  
Just wondering.  
\--JW_

_He. No. God, you must be bored to ask a question like that. Are you sober at the moment? Here, I’m attaching some photos from a double murder in Swindon yesterday; take a look, if you’re not too wrecked. Classified, obviously.  
\--SH_

_Mostly sober. Sorry. Good lord, that looks...labor-intensive. At least three different sorts of cutting implements were used, I’d say? What else am I meant to be looking for?  
\--JW_

John is, in fact, rather bored. He’s settled into a routine at the field hospital: triage shifts, surgical shifts, mess hall, poker game with the usual suspects. Grey concrete block and an endless procession of horribly damaged bodies to be dealt with. Cut-and-paste banter, howls of pain, gallows humour. Losing a lot of money at cards is one of the things that will break him through blankness into feeling something. Emails from Sherlock are another.

They’re back to communicating nearly every day now, and it’s intoxicating. Either there’s a great deal of crime going on in London this summer, or Sherlock is finally gaining the kind of name he’d hoped for. People are actually beginning to seek him out with unusual cases now and then, although most of it, Sherlock complains, is the usual cheating-partner, missing-pet melodrama: dull as toast.

 _Know what you mean,_ John tells him. _Thinking about requesting an active tour again._

There’s a few days' delay before John receives an answer to that one. It says simply,

_I wish you wouldn’t.  
\--SH_

John’s heart gives a ridiculous leap when he reads it, and he stares at the words for far too long, telling himself he’s a complete fool. He’s useful to Sherlock, that’s all. Like this poor Lestrade sap, no doubt, who John’s decided to envision as sixtyish and balding, with a large spare tyre overhanging his brown polyester trousers.

*

John puts off requesting reassignment. July 2008 is a bloody month in Afghanistan, with record-breaking numbers of British soldiers dead and injured, and between that and the increasing demands of Sherlock’s emails, John doesn’t come up for air for most of the summer. There’s nothing but blood and bone and scalpel, and photos and descriptions of more of the same. Should he be more worried, John wonders briefly in the moments after his head hits the pillow at odd hours, that he doesn’t find this life at all disturbing? His sleep is dreamless and restorative. He doesn’t have time to analyze this.

*

In late August, Harry’s marriage ends. She sends John a lot of desperately unhappy, self-flagellating messages, and in a moment of weakness he agrees to come and stay with her during his upcoming mandatory leave.

John doesn’t tell Sherlock he’s coming back to London, this time. Sherlock deduces it.

He turns up on Harry’s doorstep, pounding on the door to her flat at one in the morning, and John is instantly up off the sofa and opening the latches before he’s fully awake, blinking in confusion at the man standing there.

“Hello, John,” he says. “Ready for a bit of action?”

John can only gape. “You, you’re... What are you doing here?” He feels his mouth twist in what must be a really dopey-looking grin. “How did you...?”

“Child’s play,” Sherlock says, pushing past him into the room and giving everything a once-over. “You were due a leave, you’ve mentioned your sister no less than three times in the past months, and your email time stamps suddenly changed over to Greenwich Mean six days ago. If you ask me how I knew where she lived, I’m ending our association on the spot. There’s a body on the riverbank not ten minutes from here. Cab’s waiting downstairs; are you coming along to see it or not?”

“Am I...give me a minute, just a minute,” John says, still wondering how this can possibly not be a dream. “You’re _here._ ”

Sherlock sighs. “Trousers would be advisable,” he says, plucking John’s up from the chair where he left them neatly folded an hour ago, and offers them to him. John gives a disbelieving laugh and takes them, shedding his pyjama bottoms quickly and putting them on. Sherlock doesn’t make any pretense of glancing away.

“You look different than I remembered,” John offers, but Sherlock doesn’t take the bait.

“Pleasantries later,” he says. “Let’s go.”

John scribbles a note for Harry and sticks it to the fridge--he’s not sure she’ll even miss him, the visit hasn’t been going well at all, but just in case--grabs the spare keys, and follows Sherlock out of the flat. He stops in the well-lit outer corridor and grabs Sherlock by the sleeve.

“One thing, first,” he says, and seizes Sherlock’s chin before he can react, turning his face toward the light and frowning at him critically. Sherlock starts to jerk away, then relaxes when he realises what John is looking for.

“Ah,” he says. “Quite. No, I’m clean at the moment, have been since January, as a matter of fact. I generally don’t seek out altered mental states unless I’m having trouble finding other things to keep my mind occupied, and that hasn’t been an issue just lately. Come _on,_ John-- there’s only so long Lestrade can hold his forensics team at bay with a pointy stick, and I need to see this body before they muck it all up beyond repair. Are you with me or not?”

“Well, with you, I suppose,” John says, and follows Sherlock down the stairs and into thirty-seven hours of complete insanity. There’s a body on the riverbank that’s been poisoned, not drowned; there are six or seven mad dashes back and forth across London in cabs and on foot to various obscure locations where they’re surely not allowed to be; there’s a freezing half-hour in the cold room of a morgue; a stakeout on a park bench where John manages to fall asleep for twenty minutes; nothing whatsoever to eat or drink except for half a cup of cold coffee and three very stale chocolate biscuits; and finally, a footrace through an unused Underground tunnel and a bit of hand-to-hand combat that ends with John sitting on the suspect’s chest and trying not to spatter blood directly into the man’s face while Sherlock triumphantly shouts for the Met team down the dark echoing caverns under London.

“That was...that was...” John gasps, when the murder suspect has been taken away and Sherlock has pulled him clear of the swarm of police to lean against the damp filthy concrete a few yards off and collect himself.

“Wasn’t it?” Sherlock smirks, then scowls and fishes in an inside coat pocket until he produces a nearly-clean cotton handkerchief, which he hands to John. “You’re still bleeding.”

John presses the cloth gingerly to the cut under his eye. “Face wounds always look worse than they are,” he says automatically. “I wouldn’t mind getting cleaned up, though. Do we need to hang about here?”

“No,” Sherlock says, and takes him firmly by the elbow, guiding him through the tunnel and up the stairs and into the blinding late-day sun, where a cab stops for them right away, by some miracle or sorcery. John wouldn’t put anything past Sherlock at this point.

“Amazing,” he murmurs, and leans his head back against the leather seat, letting his eyes close for what feels like just a moment before Sherlock is tugging at his elbow again.

“Come on, we’re here,” he says impatiently.

“Where?” John shakes his head, dazed, and blood drops spatter. “I can’t see Harry like this. She’ll go spare.” He thinks guiltily of the two texts he’d managed to send her from the backs of speeding cabs, and promises himself he’ll phone her the minute the world quits spinning quite so hectically.

“My place,” Sherlock says. “It’s a bit horrible. It’s got running water, though. Usually.”

*

The flat is more than a bit horrible, but there’s running water, and it’s even hot, eventually, if brownish. Sherlock lets John have first go at the mildewy shower, and he peels off his clothes and stands blissfully under the trickle, half-hypnotised by the swirls of blood and sluiced-off tunnel filth disappearing down the drain.

There’s an impatient knock while John is still standing in front of the mirror with a towel around his waist, dabbing antiseptic cream at the cut on his face. Sherlock doesn’t quite wait for him to finish saying “Come in,” before entering.

“My turn,” he says, already turning the water back on and unbuttoning his shirt.

“Almost done here,” John says, moving his mouth as little as possible so that the blood won’t well up again as he improvises a few butterfly stitches from the adhesive tape he’s found in the cabinet, and Sherlock drifts closer to come and look over his shoulder at John’s reflection. John sucks in his stomach and pulls himself up taller reflexively, but Sherlock’s eyes (he watches them in the mirror) linger admiringly on the neat line of bandaging, giving only a cursory glance to his bare torso.

“Clean clothes in the bureau, help yourself,” Sherlock tells him finally, and sheds his shirt and trousers unselfconsciously before stepping into the shower. Long white flanks, thin ropy arms, dirt-streaked. John finishes off the butterflies before the mirror can begin to steam up again and leaves the room.

Out of habit and training he seeks out fuel before rest. He pads into the kitchen in his damp towel and eventually comes up with half a stale baguette and a carton of yoghurt that’s only a day or two past its expiration date. Sherlock doesn’t keep much of a pantry. The whole place, he thinks, looking around muzzily, isn’t all all what he’d expected--less posh, more post-graduate hovel.

After wolfing the food, John wanders into the dusty bedroom and finds a pair of loose navy-blue boxers to put on, then flops face-down onto the unmade bed before getting any further.

He wakes again a few minutes later when Sherlock throws himself down next to him with a heavy sigh. “Yes, I am wearing pants,” Sherlock says, reading John’s startled look. He props himself up on one elbow and studies John frankly, and John wonders what Sherlock’s seeing now--his entire sexual history? the source of every nick and blemish?--but decides he doesn’t much care; John has a good and useful body, he knows, and he’s rather proud of it and of what it can do, on the whole.

“Are you up for anything?” Sherlock asks, sounding more curious and amused than seductive, but the low pitch of his voice sends a jolt of heat through John’s lower belly. _Junkie,_ John thinks, _Eccentric crime-obsessed junkie,_ and also _civilian, oh bloody christ,_ but he’s been wondering about this for a long time now, and he’s too exhausted not to give in.

“Yeah, suppose I am,” John says, and reaches up to run the backs of his fingers up and down Sherlock’s bare, slightly damp side. Sherlock closes his eyes and shivers.

It’s a really terrible idea. They’re both jacked up on adrenalin and John has reached an almost dreamlike state of tiredness and there’s no way this will work in any sense. The kissing is nice, though: Sherlock’s warm, full lips on his suddenly, gently tasting him, and Sherlock’s hands finding just the right places to stroke and press and cup.

John rolls over on top of him and pins him to the bed, taking him by surprise--he can see it in Sherlock’s face. God, yes, that’s good, he thinks. Surprising Sherlock Holmes. “Can I suck you off?” he asks, panting a little with excitement, and Sherlock bites his lip and makes a whimpering noise in his throat, nodding blindly. “Good, all right,” John says, and kisses him again, then moves down his body, licking and biting here and there, raising trails of gooseflesh against Sherlock’s clean flushed skin.

*

“You’re much less of an idiot in person than you are online,” Sherlock murmurs when they’re through, rubbing his fingers through the short hairs on the back of John’s neck.

“I don’t know how to take that,” John says into Sherlock’s sharp hip, making him squirm. “Er...thanks?”

“I never give compliments,” Sherlock assures him. “Come up here. I need you here,” and John’s just awake enough to crawl back up the bed and into his arms before passing out.

*

He wakes to sudden coldness, and finds Sherlock standing next to the door, buttoning his shirt with one hand and texting with the other. “Have to go,” Sherlock says, when he sees John lift his head from the pillow inquiringly. “Lestrade. You can stay. Oh, you’re off again in the morning, though, aren’t you? Well. I’ll be in touch. It was good seeing you. Safe travels and all that.” He’s out of the room before John can think of anything to say in protest or response, and then the front door to the flat slams behind him, leaving a hollow silence that prevents him from falling back asleep.

*

~ 10 October, 2008 ~

_Dear Dr Watson, (sorry, not sure of your correct rank)_

_We met briefly on the evening of 30 August in connection with the arrest of one Otto Norton. I’m clearing up some paperwork and am unable to find an official police statement on record regarding your involvement in Mr. Norton’s capture. I am aware of your circumstances, but is there a day and time I could contact you for a taped phone interview?_

_Sincerely,  
Detective Inspector G. Lestrade  
Metropolitan Police Authority_

John responds promptly to this email with a date, time, and phone number where he can be reached. He badly wants to append a PS, _Seen Sherlock lately? He hasn’t been answering his email. Give him my regards if you run into him,_ but in the end his pride just won’t allow it. He did in fact meet Lestrade on the evening of 30 August. He isn’t sixtyish and balding with a spare tyre. Not at all. He does wear a wedding ring, at least, for whatever that’s worth.

Anyway, John’s basically got the picture after six weeks and three unanswered emails. No, two. He hadn’t sent the third one, thank christ.

*

~ 7 November, 2008 ~

_How many days could an adult human male survive in a waterless environment by drinking his own urine?  
SH_

~ 10 November, 2008 ~

_Sulking or busy?  
SH_

~ 11 November, 2008 ~

_John?  
SH_

~ 13 November, 2008 ~

_If this is about what happened between us when you were last in London, I apologise. I tend to panic when confronted with the implications of interactions of that sort. I would appreciate the favour of a reply so that I’ll know you haven’t been killed by an IED, although I imagine I would have read about it in the newspaper if you had.  
SH_

~ 18 November, 2008 ~

_Sorry. Not dead. Internet access infrequent. I’m on a tour of active duty for the next eleven months, providing medical support on convoys in Kandahar Province. Probably won’t be able to answer emails very promptly for a while.  
Not a problem about what happened in London. It was nice.  
John_

_Oh, and as to your other question. No more than 24 hours depending on previous hydration levels of the man in question, and could result in permanent kidney damage. Inadvisable. Hope you didn’t resort to self-experimentation while waiting for an answer.  
J_

There’s a slight sort of mean satisfaction in getting to respond to Sherlock’s long-overdue attempts at communication so tersely, but it doesn’t quite break the surface of John’s combat-zone-induced, bone-deep, thoroughly exhausted calm. It's more than a relief to be back in the desert. He’d been useful at Helmand, but this feels more like something he was made to do: running under clear skies, breathing grit, cheating death. And it’s shockingly good to have a weapon in hand again.

He’d send Sherlock a message to thank him, but Sherlock might take it wrongly, he decides. Best to let the correspondence slide, interesting as it had been. It _had_ been nice, that time in London, anyway.

And it wasn’t as if, realistically, it could ever have been anything more, could it?


End file.
